Posted on 02/28/2008 6:10:58 AM PST by Ignatz
Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP. "They pose a threat to humanity," said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.
Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.
There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.
The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.
But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.
It we are not careful, he said, that could change.
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(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
If this war morphs into our robots killing jihadists, that would be a good thing. More of them dying and fewer of ours, that is how wars are ended.
Not if you duct tape a bunch of bacon and playboy centerfold pics to the outside.
Like Holy Water to a Vampire...
If you think Skynet is bad, just wait until you tangle with IRSnet. You'll be begging for a Terminator to finish you off.
War should be waged by people so that they understand full well what they are doing to each other. Machines wouls experience no emotions when they go out and mercilessly kill people.
Bear in mind we are not talking about machine-vs-machine fights. The idea is to engage the human enemy without casulaties.
File for an extension.....
Speaking as a lifelong fan of the Sci-Fi genre, I'm constantly making note of common things in my everyday life that I remember reading about as a youth. Just saying...
I'm sorry, I don't understand; how does this apply to Muslim Suicide Bombers when they mercilessly kill people the innocent? Why do we have to expose our best and brighest youth when the Terrorists are busily blowing themselves up in order to indiscriminately kill old men, women who want to vote and have some illusion of equality, and children who just want to go to school - when they use mentally handicapped/retarded women?
Westworld: Where nothing can go worng...
Or something productive, like killing Muslims.
Weren’t Dahleks organic beings inside the robotic outside, though?
We’re talking more T-850 and Skynet type stuff here :P
I would imagine people thought the same things about the implementation of iron swords, crossbows, catapaults, flintlocks, the repeating rifle, poison gas, tanks, airplanes, zeppelins, nuclear weapons, missiles, and energy beam weaponry.
Robots would simply change strategy. The human impulse to fight would remain.
The reason humans are the most evolved animal is because of the unnaturally high evolutionary pressure from war. Now robots have begun this hyper-evolution. To stop this from happening would freeze technology and destroy the future wealth of America. It's very important to understand the key role that war plays in driving technology.
They could destroy the space time continuum unraveling the very fabric of the universe. That would be a worst case scenario of course the destruction might only be limited to our own galaxy.
Robots are mere machines; whereas humans are sentient beings with freewill & autonomy to do as they will.
It doesn't. We should everyone in the Mideast with VX gas and be done with it. No robots needed.
So I’d be given a choice of having a soul-less, relentless machine with no remorse stalking me the rest of my days, or I could have the Terminator after me, right?
Then, I guess we are in agreement...
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